Blog

I’m wondering if there is good way to connect the CC Google Group to this blog so the posts are mirrored. Preffereably both ways.

Jesta put together a nice site here and it’s a shame that it gets less traffic than it deserves. Maybe there’s a WP plugin and Google functionality to do that? I don’t have time right now to research this but maybe someone with more blog experience knows already the things one should know.

I like the idea of SL. It’s cool. A virtual world with open-ended goals. Building tools are accessible to everyone, and easy to learn. Sure, mesh and sculpties are a little more complex, but they’re doable, even if it takes some skill to get good results. Anyone can mess with it.

I like that there is a huge diversity of people using SL. It’s cool to think that you can randomly bump into all kinds of people. The problem is, in reality, it doesn’t always work out that way.

SL has a lot of people who want to separate RL and SL. They’re on a mission of some focused kind of experience, and that generally means they’re less open to talking to strangers. Others aren’t so much trying to segregate realities, but they’re busy. They own a shop or run a samurai clan or whatever, and they don’t have time for idle chit chat.

What I’m trying to get at is that if my friends from Corona Cay that I’ve known for the past 6 1/2 years aren’t logged in, I find it impossible to get anyone to talk to me. Maybe I’m a social failure, maybe I just don’t know how to find interesting people, but the fact is, SL is pretty freaking boring unless the people who I’ve known since rez day or shortly after aren’t inworld.

I don’t know if that’s a damning indictment on me, or on SL, but it seems like SL kind of sucks for hanging out in just for fun, to be honest. I’ll bet every one of the people on Corona Cay who comes in at a weird time when no one else is in knows exactly what I’m talking about. Am I right? Or am I just being negative again?

I have to admit, I don’t know what people do in SL anymore. If people from Corona Cay aren’t on, I can’t figure out the appeal of SL. It performs terribly and everywhere I go are people who don’t want to talk to anyone. Wait… that’s not quite true. I spoke with a spanish speaking female avatar today and thanks to Google Translator, I figured out she was looking for a job. I couldn’t offer any suggestions or be very helpful.

I’m using the Destinations finder right now trying to figure out why the suggested destinations are supposed to be any good. So far I’m striking out. I’ll admit, part of that is because my computer quickly gets overloaded at really elaborate sims. Part of it is because I get there and there’s not a lot to do. Part of it is because there’s not a lot of people at most of them. And part of it is because some of them are places where people like to roleplay and I don’t want to.

I don’t even know what the point of this blog post is, except to start every paragraph with “I”. What do people do when no one else from Corona Cay is on? How come whenever I log in for the first time in many months, I wander around struggling to understand why SL hasn’t just shuttered its doors from lack of use? What are people doing? Is it new people? Are there any oldbies who still use it regularly?

The response by Botgirl Questi was the most interesting, because she posits that it isn’t Linden Lab or technology that’s failed in making SL the “real” metaverse, it’s the residents themselves. She seems to feel that we have the tools in SL and that any failure for the metaverse as envisioned to appear is a failure to use those tools.

I agree that a lot of it is the failure of residents. I’m part of the problem. If I’d just used SL to build and script and get things done, that would have been great. That’s what SL is best at, IMO. It allows those things and those things are freedom. As it was, I diverted into wandering around and wondering what the point was. But it’s kind of hard not to, with Bloodlines and so many divergent crazy groups. And yet the only place I ever felt like I found people that I wanted to hang out with or that wanted to hang out with me was on Corona Cay. The rest of SL feels like a massive wasteland to me. It’s empty. Or it’s full of people that don’t even want to say hi. Or it’s LAGGY. And all the technical issues I remember from when I was logging in regularly still seem to exist in some form or other. All these things combine to sap the fun right out of it.

But that seems to indicate to me that it’s not just the residents playing vampire or wandering around in bondage outfits that are the problem. I think they ARE part of the problem. But the rest of the problem is that it’s not even close to the realism of a good modern video game, and yet the performance is horrendous. The metaverse is supposed to provide incredible illusion of reality – something SL can’t even come close to – and that’s never going to happen on this platform. Furthermore, SL is a reality replacement, as far as I can tell in how most people use it, whereas the metaverse is more of a reality augmentation. We should be our own avatars. We should just join up in a non-physical environment. That’s really what I want.

Guiding a cartoon character around is ok for a little while at a time. But it really can’t compete with the other stuff going on in my life that I get to use my own eyes and navigate my own body to do. Until the metaverse is ME logging in, and not a pixel guy, it’s not going to be compelling, even if they solve the technical issues that sap my enthusiasm and the social aspects of the world that make me wonder why I’m still logged in. It’s not the compelling vision of the metaverse that was presented before SL, that Philip Linden was striving towards.

I recenlty returned to Corona Cay for my third stay as a resident. I’ve had a blast reconnecting with old friends and meeting new ones. This place has always struck me as a tight-knit community of creative and friendly people that have the tendency to get a bit wacky at the drop of the hat. Maybe that’s why I keep coming back.

Just the other morning, Itazura taught me about driving cars on the mainland roadways. It was so much fun that tongiht after returning from work I decided to purchase the Chevy in the photo. Several hours later of crossing regions lines and seeing the countryside, I’m hooked. Let me know if you want to go for a spin sometime.

In addition to motoring, I have a couple of creative projects I’d like to tend this time around. The early stages of one of them can be seen on the bell tower on my Always Be Reflecting parcel. It is an animated GIF of Buddy Holly & The Crickets. I’m also goofing off with trying to learn how to do machinima and came up with this little something. Eventually, I’d like to set up a museum / shop featuring such animated GIFs. But first I need to develop some texturing and building skills.

I’ve also talked to Keeme about helping out with a streaming audio project he’s working on. Anyone who’s intersted in dj-ing or learning how to dj should look either of us up.

Bottom line, I’m pretty stoked with the look and feel of Corona Cay. I’m grateful for the chance to spend some time here again, and am looking forward to whatever comes next.

I’ve been a cartoon boy since 2006, when I first created an avatar in Second Life. During that time, a lot has changed and my opinions of SL have kind of gone all over the place. I let my rental on Corona Cay lapse for good as I just could not justify the use of my time and money on SL at the time. Well, now I’m back on Corona Cay. It’s a little experiment to see if I can still be involved without feeling the pain of knowing I was not making the best use of my time again.

I need to qualify the above by saying that it’s never a waste of time to talk to the friends I’ve made on Corona Cay. It’s not about that. But Second Life is the kind of thing that can waste a lot of time if you let it. You can also sink money into it on a monthly basis that you can’t justify when looking at your budget and trying to figure out things like school costs for kids and other normal life expenses. Frankly, SL is never going to trump those or even come close to the priority of anything family related. It’s not, and it shouldn’t.

But I want to support Corona Cay because I believe in it. I also want to try to hang out with my friends there when I can without it becoming too much again. Maybe I’ll log in a lot during a given timeframe, and then go without logging in again for awhile. That’s SL. That kind of thing has to be acceptable to people, or things don’t work. So I am sharing a parcel with Das Boots, formerly known as Keeme, and hopefully I can participate in some of the things we want to do on Corona Cay.

I’m also determined to finally learn some Blender skills once and for all. I like that SL has mesh now. Learning sculpties was confusing to me, too much to absorb all at once while trying to learn modeling and Blender in particular. With mesh it’s a lot more straightforward as regular modeling techniques apply more directly. I never succeeding in grasping more than the bare minimum with sculpties, and I had no clue how to optimize for SL sculpts, etc. This time I’m not in any race or have any real plan for it, other than to work on it a little here and there. That way I can do something that might help my enjoyment of SL without actually having to be in SL all the time.

I like the people on Corona Cay. I like that it’s about real friendships and real life, and SL is just a place to meet and talk and have fun. The immersive types and the whole thing that goes along with all that are one of the things that really burnt me out on SL, and this place doesn’t have that. It doesn’t have to be that way. So I’m glad about that, and glad to be talking with all the other people on Corona Cay more often again. But primarily these are friends first, and fellow SL and Corona Cay residents second, very much in that order.

Some of you may be familiar with the song I wrote, “Corona Cay”. The inspiration and title of course came from the island that I call my home in Second Life. But Corona Cay is more than just a pretty 3D island – it’s a community of people who have quickly become friends both inside and outside of the virtual world. There’s been some great times spent together doing crazy, zany things, having lots of fun but also being there to support each other when needed. Old friends come to party, and newcomers and visitors are welcomed with open arms – and sometimes a little harmless fun at their expense! Overall it’s a great place to be – both virtually and metaphorically.

And so, here is a new website for the Corona Cayans which we hope will act as a portal for people to discover our little piece of paradise. I’m looking forward to seeing some blog posts from my neighbors. What ends up on here only time will tell, but the journey should be fun!

I leave you for now with the end result of my inspired song-writing session, Corona Cay…